


Save Some for Tony

by justanotherStonyfan



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 10:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherStonyfan/pseuds/justanotherStonyfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's cooking, Tony's hungry. But Tony's not going to admit it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Save Some for Tony

**Author's Note:**

> I never posted to ao3 before, and I've never posted in this fandom. So hey, I'm new *waves.* This is the first thing I've finished, although I've got more in the works. Those should be better than this, and I've learned to format speech correctly since this, but I figured I have nothing to lose.

When Tony walked into the kitchen, Steve was just setting the last of four trays down on the countertop, still doing something with herbs, it looked like. 

“What is this?” Tony asked, and Steve glanced back over his shoulder, eyes sparkling, a quirk to the corner of his mouth.

“I made dinner,” he said, looking back again. 

Tony rolled his eyes.

“We could have ordered takeout,” he said, crossing to the other side of the room to get a mug of coffee.

“I was bored,” Steve answered, and Clint knew he was one of the rare few who meant it.

He'd hadn't been making dinner to save time or effort or to stop everybody paying up for takeout. He'd just been hungry, and bored, and figured everyone else would be too.

“Jesus, he cooks, too,” Tony muttered, leaning back against the counter to stare at Steve's back. “There anything you don't do or are your trying to put us to shame?”

“I don't put up with bad manners at my table,” Steve answered without turning. “Sit down, I just took it out of the oven, i't'll be-”

“Are you serious?” Tony interrupted, sounding spectacularly unconvinced, and he pushed himself off the counter to cross the kitchen. 

“Yes,” Steve answered, and Clint could see the change in his posture.

Tony didn't seem to care, stalking right up to stand next to Steve. And then he leaned past him to see in front of him.

“You're doing it wrong.”

Steve didn't even slow down. 

For a long few seconds, nobody really noticed anything had changed at all. Steve was busy pulling the oven mitts off his hands and turning his back to Tony, smiling at the rest of them.

“But it's Tony's table, after all,” he said.

And when he walked forward, Clint – and, judging by everyone's reactions, everybody else around the table – expected him to pick up some cutlery or fetch glasses, a knife to cut the food maybe. 

But he was gone. He walked straight out of the kitchen and turned the corner and...didn't come back.

They all, all of them, sat still for a good few seconds, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to change or happen, for Steve to walk back in with something he'd forgotten or something he wanted to wear or to just come back and explain he'd had to go to the bathroom or that he thought he'd heard the door.

But he didn't.

“Jesus, Stark,” Natasha muttered, and she pushed her chair back and stalked out after Steve.

“You always know what to say, don't you?” Bruce asked, and Tony pulled a face.

“He's the one who went all domestic Goddess-”

“You're being an ass and you know you are,” Bruce answered, taking his glasses off. “You don't have to admit it, don't worry, we noticed anyway. But maybe you ought to think about why before you take it out on other people.”

“Or deprive us of food,” Thor added.

“Yeah,” Tony said, pointing at the meal still steaming on the countertop, “or I could serve the-”

“It's not your place,” Bruce said. “We'll wait for Steve. Are you eating with us?”

Tony snorted.

“I'm getting Chinese.”

~

“Cap?”

Steve's suite was dark and the door was open but Natasha could hear him. She knew he was there, she could make out his silhouette against the windows, against the skyline.

“Hey,” he said, and he didn't sound angry.

He just sounded tired.

“Why don't you come eat with us?” she said. “We don't wanna start without you.”

“Who sent you?” he asked in return. “Banner?” 

She shook her head and stepped into the darkness as he moved around. She could make out what he was doing – he was picking things up and putting them down, moving things from one place to another, unfolding and folding clothes, shifting pencils on the desk.

“Nobody sent me,” she said, and he stopped mid movement to lift his head and look at her, still hunched over one of his armchairs with his face in shadow.

“I don't mean to sound rude, Natasha,” he murmured. “But why did you follow me?”

She narrowed her eyes a little and shook her head.

“I thought it was the right thing to do.”

He stood up straight then, sighing softly.

“Right,” he said. 

And then he went back to organizing the place in relative darkness. 

“Didn't you want someone to follow you?” she said eventually, and his outline shrugged.

“I wasn't thinking about it,” he said. “I just didn't want to be in the kitchen.”

With Tony.

“He's just tired,” she said, hoping maybe that would help.

And he laughed softly.

“He's not just tired, he's been working for almost two days without any sleep, he hadn't had any coffee for a few hours and he hasn't eaten for almost as long as he's been busy. I was in his line of fire, it's not a problem.”

“He didn't mean it.”

“Of course he didn't, he's Tony Stark. He probably smelled food and came up to eat. But he was angry at something so he took it out on me, same as when he yells at Clint for putting his feet on the coffee table if he hasn't slept in a while. Or Thor and his hammer with the, uh...”

He waved his hand.

“What does he call that thing?”

“Holographic design interface.”

“Right.”

And he kept moving around. 

“Are you coming back?” Natasha asked, and Steve shrugged again.

“Is Tony still in the...hang on,” he stood up, stood still. “J.A.R.V.I.S?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Is Tony still in the kitchen?”

“Sir has returned to his workshop.”

Steve sighed heavily, enough that his silhouette shrunk by about a third.

“Then yeah,” Steve said, walking towards her, past her. “I'm coming back.”

Everybody was still at the table when he walked back in, Natasha ahead of him, and he was grateful that nobody turned around to watch him and nobody spoke to him about it.

It wasn't like he didn't understand Tony, wasn't like he couldn't deal with Tony. It was just easier to let Tony win when he didn't feel like fighting.

“You can ignore him, it's okay,” Banner said and...oh, okay. 

They were going to talk about this after all.

“I'm fine,” Steve said. 

He really was, but he doubted they believed it.

Clint stood up when he retrieved plates from the cupboard, and started to help him serve the food, and Steve just picked up the plates and started passing them down the table.

“You sure?” Banner said, and Steve nodded.

“Yeah,” he answered. “He didn't mean it. He's just...Tony. Something's on his mind, he'll either tell us or he won't. Uh, Clint?”

“Yeah?” Clint said, half turning with the serving spoon still in hand.

“Double on that one. You're hungry, right, Thor?”

Thor grinned and Steve chuckled at him. 

“Yeah, double on that one.”

“What about the rest?” Clint asked as Steve took his seat. “You want me to-”

“Leave it for Tony,” Steve answered. 

And he felt the silence that descended over them.

“Uh, Cap?” Clint said very quietly, and Steve shrugged.

“He's gone back to his workshop,” he said. “He'll forget about food until he's too hungry to ignore it, and then all the good restaurants'll be closed. He'll be hungry. Even if he doesn't like the idea, he'll come up for food. I intended to feed everybody, that hasn't changed.”

Clint sat down with his own plate and Natasha watched Steve as everybody else started to eat. He spent a few seconds with his eyes closed, probably saying grace in his head, and then he started eating, too.

~

It was half past four in the morning when the way Tony's stomach growled was uncomfortable enough that he knew he should eat. 

He went upstairs because finding something in the kitchen was easier than calling out and waiting for however long it would take to deliver his food. The lights were out most of the way, aside from the small guide lights he'd had set into the dado rail along the corridors to light the way.

They ran on a backup generator, came on as soon as the rest of the lights were turned off. And it was helpful to have something to light his way given how stupid his damned eyes were being.

He ran his hand along the wall as he neared the kitchen and he'd stumbled into the room by about three steps when he realized that the small downlights from the cabinets were on, and that they were apparently on for a reason. 

Steve was sitting at his usual place at the table, though he was alone, and there was a plate of food at Tony's seat. Steve's notebook was open in front of him and Tony could see gray squiggles but couldn't make out much else at this distance. Or this time of the morning.

“You're awake,” Tony said and, oh yeah, he was a genius all right.

“I am,” Steve answered.

“You should be in bed.”

Steve sat back in his chair.

“I could tell you the same thing but it wouldn't matter,” he said. “Besides, I didn't want you thinking we'd forgotten about you.”

Tony eyed the plate of food warily. Steve just held out a hand to it.

“Hungry?”

Tony narrowed his eyes a little.

“Yeah,” he said. 

“Then you should eat. It's fine cold, you can still heat it if you need to.”

Tony pulled out his chair and sat down, without looking at Steve, and he picked up his fork because he was hungry. Because this was food.

“How is it?” Steve asked as soon as he'd taken his first mouthful and Tony damn near told him.

Yeah, Steve hadn't been lying. It was really, really good, especially now, after so long on coffee and not much else.

“I can eat it,” Tony said instead, and Steve huffed out a laugh though his expression didn't really change.

He leaned forward over the table and started scribbling in his notebook again. 

Tony watched him for a moment or two, and then he went back to his meal. Steve didn't watch him, didn't even look up at him, he just sat there. While Tony tried to eat.

And it was...weird. He didn't seem angry but then he rarely looked angry when he was, as unusual as anger was on Steve Rogers. Tony ate a few more mouthfuls and then he just stared at the top of Steve's head, the way a couple of strands of hair shook as he shaded something.

“It's...Uh, it's good,” Tony said quietly, and Steve looked mildly surprised when his head came up.

“Good,” he said, and they stared at each other for a second or two.

Then Tony shrugged and looked down, and he was aware of Steve slowly going back to his notebook.

Tony had barely finished what was on his plate when Steve picked it up and took it to the sink, and Tony just sat there and watched Steve's back while he washed the plate.

“You know, I got a machine for that,” he said.

“You have machines for a lot of things,” Steve answered, head turning a little. “Do you have machines to sleep for you?”

Tony ran his hand over his eyes, settled his elbows on the tabletop and his head in his hands.

He heard Steve set the plate on the rack, heard Steve collect his notebook and his pencil, and he didn't open his eyes until a warm weight settled between his shoulderblades. Even then, he only lifted his head enough to know he hadn't fallen asleep on the table.

“You should sleep,” Steve said, low and close behind him, and Tony nodded, lowering his hands again.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

Steve's footsteps receded, louder on the kitchen tile than the hall carpet.

And Tony stared at Steve's empty chair for a moment or two, then at the still-wet plate drying on the rack.

“Sorry,” he whispered to the empty room.

And he barely heard the voice that floated back.

“Goodnight, Mr. Stark.”


End file.
